You are in the middle of a data project. IT teams understand the technical implications of the project and business teams understand its value impact. Good. But are you sure your IT and Business teams can work together?

Why IT and Business Teams need to be aligned during a data project

If IT and Business teams cannot work together, then the data project will not reach its fruition in terms of completeness and accuracy. Each profile has its own unique contribution to the project as a whole — business teams can contribute insights that IT teams would never have considered, and IT teams have the capability to use technology to build meaningful data products that less technical profiles may not know how to accomplish.

Business profiles need to understand what can be done (from a technical perspective) while IT profiles need to understand what needs to be done (from a business perspective).

Don’t know if your analytics culture is low? Try this

Here are 6 items you need to evaluate to determine if your team's common predictive analytics culture is low:

Communication is on an as-needed basis (e.g., initial assignment of problem to be solved);

Lack of flexibility in terms of both approach and project planning;

Absence of a collaborative work environment and tools;

Failure of leadership in terms of proactively fostering cooperation and collaboration between teams;

Meetings with no concrete results;

Lack of strong leadership in terms of finding common ground for the project and its deadlines.

How you can knock down your cultural data barriers

Does any of this sound familiar to your work environment? If yes, your data projects’ success may be compromised. Your time is going to be wasted on countless meetings with little impact... and none of your people will have a clear view of the next milestone, all because your IT and business teams can’t work together.

Here are 3 concrete steps that should help your IT and business teams work together on successful data projects:

Collaborative workflow-centric tool that is accessible to all team members;

Evangelization of communication across teams from senior management;

Project transparency and accessibility supported by a tool that facilitates inclusion of all team members, regardless of skill-set and experience level.